2016 Marks IASP’s Global Year Against Joint Pain

The International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) recently launched its 2016 “Global Year Against Pain in the Joints.” In addition to disseminating clinical information focused on joint pain, the campaign seeks to:

• Connect pain researchers to other health care professionals who interact with joint-pain patients
• Increase public and governmental awareness of joint pain, and
• Encourage funders to support research aimed at producing more effective and accessible treatments for people with joint pain.

The Global Year Against Pain in the Joints website includes links to joint pain-related articles from the IASP’s journal Pain and the organization’s six-times-a-year publication Pain: Clinical Updates.  An interview with campaign co-chairs Lars Arendt-Nielsen and Serge Perrot points to promising pain-management research with monoclonal antibodies and biologics directed at anti-nerve growth factor (anti-NGF).

Claiming that “up to 20 percent of joint pain patients do not achieve pain relief after joint replacement,” Dr. Arendt-Nielsen stressed the importance of “partnering with other influential individuals and groups outside of the [IASP]” to achieve the campaign’s goals.